Auston Matthews might not set a career high in goals, but nothing about his pace should worry Leafs fans

Yesterday there was a strong reaction to Frank Seravalli and Jason Gregor’s take on Auston Matthews goal output for 2022-23 and how they found the lack of concern from Leafs fans a little strange.

That being said, the topic has been raised so let’s look at Auston’s production.

Matthews is definitely down from the rate that only three players in the past 22 years have hit, and that’s the 60-goal mark. You can blame a slow start with the first ten games not being overly electric for Auston, but he has certainly picked up the pace. While his linear trend is towards around 40 goals this season, based on his increased production over time it is far more likely that Auston will find his way back to around the 50-goal mark, albiet with reliance on him staying healthy for the full 82 games.

The biggest change from last season to this one seems to be the drop in Matthews multi-goal games and prolonged goal-scoring heaters. There hasn’t been any drop-off after the slow first ten games, but there hasn’t been that 8 goals in 5 games spike yet like what was seen last year. Just good steady production and that is not something that should warrant any questions about his goal-scoring ability or raise any concern, especially since after that initial ugly start the Leafs have been winning at a rate that puts them at the top of the league.

There’s also the small matter of fact that the 2021-22 second half demonstrates that there is plenty of potential for a Matthews upswing.

So if there is any question about why Leafs fans aren’t particularly worried about Matthews it’s probably that if it’s 40 goals, 50 goals, or 60 goals, Matthews is a tremendous talent that makes the Leafs better and makes the players around him better too. Of course, if this slight decline in goals leads to Matthews signing a more affordable contract extension in Toronto this summer, that wouldn’t be a bad thing either.